Transcript Korean War

4.2.2 Korea War 1950-53
Causes, Events and Results
Richtor Scale of the Cold War:
Cuban Missile Crisis
Korean
War
Berlin
Wall
built
Star Wars (Reagan/US)
Khrushchev
replaced
with
Warsaw Brezhnev
Pact
(USSR)
NATO
Perestroïka & Glasnost
DÉTENTE & PEACEFUL
CO-EXISTANCE
Berlin Wall falls
German Reunification
UN
1945 ’48
USSR crumbles
’49
’50
’55
’61
’62
’64
’65
’75
’79
’83
’85 ’89 ’90
1991
 This section will illustrate the extent of the Cold War outside of
Europe & its impact on international affairs
 Our focus will be to analyze the causes and results of the
following Cold War Hotspots
 The Korean War (1950-53)
 The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962)
 The Vietnam War ( 1950s – 1975)
 The first major military conflict of the Cold War between the
Western powers and the Communist nations in the years
following World War Two.
 The war lasted three years, cost millions of lives, devastated
both North and South Korea, and actually continues to this day
as the military conflict concluded with a truce, not an actual
peace treaty.
 The Korean War involved all of the major powers of the 1950s:
The United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia
(the Soviet Union), as well as the relatively new United Nations.
 It carried the potential for escalating into a Third World War.
 Since the beginning of the 20th
century, Korea had been a part
of the Japanese empire,
 Following the surrender of the
Japanese army in August 1945,
American & Soviet troops
occupied the area
 The Russian and American troops had liberated Korea just as
they had in Germany
As occupying powers, these two countries decided to
temporarily divide Korea along the 38th Parallel
 South of the divide, the Americans were in control while the
Soviets occupied the northern section
 As no permanent solution to this division
could be found, by 1947 the United Nations
(UN) stepped in to assume responsibility for
the country
 A UN commission was established to oversee
a free election and create a unified &
independent government in Korea
 Because the Soviets refused to acknowledge
its power in the North, the elections went
ahead in the south alone resulting in a
government recognized by the UN
 By 1948, the emerging split in the country led both areas to adopt
different forms of government with each claiming to speak for all of Korea
 US southern section forming the Democratic
Republic of South Korea
 Syngman Rhee was their leader (hardline anti
communist)
 The Soviet north became the Democratic Republic of
North Korea
 Kim Il Sung became the leader (dreamed of
uniting Korea under communism)
 North Korea wished to unify Korea as communist, while South
Korea wished to bring democracy to all of Korea.
When Russians withdrew in 1948 the left Kim Il Sung
with a well trained force
 When the Americans withdrew in 1949 they left
behind 500 advisers to train the armies of South
Korea
 Border skirmishes were common & over 10,000
North & South Korean soldiers were killed even
before the war began
 This communist activity caused Truman to order a review & re-
evaluation of American Cold War diplomacy strategy
 The result was NSC-68, one of the most important Cold War
documents as it would shape America foreign policy for next
20 years
 contain Soviet expansion.
 expand conventional military forces and the nuclear arsenal,
including hydrogen bomb
 massive increases in military aid to U.S. allies were necessary as
well as more effective use of “covert” means to achieve U.S. goals.
 Signed into policy once the Korean War began
 Video Overview
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-truman-receives-nsc68
 1949: the Chinese Civil War ends with Mao’s Communist
government taking power
 Communist China is known as the People’s Republic of China
(PRC)
 The Republic of China (ROC) is the island of Taiwan
 After being expelled from the Chinese mainland by the
communists, the R.O.C. government still considered itself to be
the one true government of China
 It was supported by the Western powers (USA) which allowed
the R.O.C. to represent China at the UN
 The wanted to prevent another communist government from
gaining a place in the Security Council
 It wasn’t until the1970s that Communist China replaced the
ROC as China’s true representative government in the United
Nation
 Since China had fallen to Communism,
US feared a domino effect: if Korea became
Communist, it would spread through the rest of
Southeast Asia
 On June 25, 1950, the Korean War
began when some 75,000 soldiers from
the North Korean People’s Army poured across
the 38th parallel
 As the North Korean army pushed into South Korea, the United
States readied its troops for a war against communism itself.
 Truman hoped to build a broad coalition against the
aggressors from the North by enlisting support from the United
Nations.
 Of course, the Soviet Union could veto any proposed action by
the Security Council, but this time, the Americans were in luck.
 The Soviets were boycotting the Security Council for refusing
to admit RED CHINA into the United Nations.
 As a result, the Council voted unanimously to "repel the armed
attack" of North Korea.
 Many countries sent troops to defend the South, but forces
beyond those of the United States and South Korea were
nominal.
 For many in the USA, the fear was that this was the
first step in a communist campaign to take over
the world.
“If we let Korea down the Soviet[s] will keep
right on going and swallow up one [place] after
another.”
 At first, the war was a defensive one – a war to get the
communists out of South Korea – and it went badly for the
Allies.
 The North Korean army was well-disciplined, well-trained and
well-equipped & quickly overran the entire peninsula with the
exception of the small PUSAN PERIMETER in the South
 By September, the commander of the UN forces, Douglas
MacArthur, went on the offensive with an amphibious landing at
Inchon
 The communist-backed northern forces reeled in retreat.
quickly pushed the northern troops to the 38th Parallel — and
kept going.
 The United States saw an opportunity to create a complete
unified democratic Korea and pushed the northern army up to
the Yalu River, which borders China.
 Truman
wanted to repel North Korean troops
from South Korea and show the collective power
of the UN
 He ordered troops to stop at the Yalu River—the
border between North Korea and China
 He allowed MacArthur to bomb bridges on the
river but only on the Korean side
 MacArthur wanted to defeat Asian communism
& thought Truman was soft on Communism
 China
had warned that if the UN invaded North
Korea, they would get involved & on November
25th, 1950 over 400,000 Chinese soldiers
attacked across the Yalu River
 Within a month, the UN coalition retreated back
beyond the 38th parallel
 Stalemate: MacArthur suggested all out nuclear
war
 He was fired April 10, 1951
 General MacArthur wanted to escalate the war
by bombing the Chinese mainland and
blockade their coast.
 Truman disagreed fearing escalation of the
conflict could lead to World War III, especially if
the now nuclear-armed Soviet Union lent
assistance to China.
 After publically criticizing Truman's approach,
MacArthur was fired for insubordination.
 American policy now was to secure an
independent and unified Korea by “political, as
distinguished from, military means.”
 American and Soviet talks at the UN resulted in
a cease-fire and peace talks began on July 10,
1951.
 There were sporadic outbreaks of fighting but a
truce was signed on July 27, 1953.
 South Korea remained “free” (though there
are still US troops there today) and
containment had worked
 BUT, Korea was badly damaged, the area is
still two separate states, and there was a
large human cost
There were some lessons learned:
 This war showed the UN’s limitations as a
peacemaking organization
 They were there only because the US had
decided it should be and that the Soviet
Union had not been in a position to use its
veto
 The enduring legacy was the Uniting for
Peace resolution, which gave the UN General
Assembly the responsibility for dealing with
international aggression if the Security Council
was deadlocked
 The Security Council passed it during the
Soviet boycott as a means of countering future
soviet vetoes.
 Rare look inside Korea's demilitarized zone
 One of the longstanding, debated questions from the Korean
War is was it an example of UN peacemaking or an example of
the American containment policy?
Peacemaking
 UN
resolution to restore independence of S.K.
 Force used by UN to stop N.K. invasion (e.g.
peacemaking)
 Some member nations of UN participate in war
Containment
 U.S. fear of ‘domino theory’
 U.S. provided economic & military aid to S.K.
 S.K. President & MacArthur want to widen war to
include reunification of Korea under S.K. as one
country & attack China to defeat communism